Volume Two—Chapter Twenty Seven.
Nuptials in High Life.
Ayto Hïerat’s crime brought its own punishment. The prominent part he had taken in the event at Boora Roofa, which had so recently covered his royal master with glory, could hardly be suffered to pass unrequited, and three days after the return of the expedition to Angollála, he was accordingly honoured with the hand of Woizoro Belete Shatchau (Anglice, “Superior to all,”) a shrew possessing the most diabolical of tempers, whom two husbands had already divorced, although a princess of the blood royal.
On the morning appointed for the nuptials, we received an early summons to the palace, in order to witness the ceremony. The throne was tricked out with unusual gaiety for the occasion, and the king, covering his mouth with a fold of his striped mantle according to undeviating wont, was still in the hands of the barber, who, having curled the last lock, was adjusting the green saréti. The court-yard was already crowded with spectators, and a numerous train of female slaves, who had entered by a side door, were arranging themselves in front. The quaint, loose chemises of blue and red, with broad white borders, which formed the attire of all, imparted a most grotesque appearance, and each carried on her woolly head a large wicker basket, ornamented with bead draperies arranged in every variety of fanciful vandyke. These antique figures and their burdens constituted the dower of the bride, whose wedding garments we had supplied, and who presently entered, riding upon a white mule, gaily tricked out in forked housings, chains, and brass bells. The Princess Worka Ferri (i.e. Golden Fruit), her sister, followed upon a second, similarly caparisoned; and both ladies were distinguished by large áftabgirs of crimson silk, as well as by a cowl of silver network which covered the hair, and terminated in a tiara of pendants and globules falling over the forehead. A crimson-striped robe formed the costume of each, and their naturally plain faces were rendered hideous by a coat of red ochre with blue-stained arches in the place of eyebrows, which it is the fashion of Shoa to pluck out.
Next in order came the royal band of music, with numerous mounted female attendants clad in pea-green vests. A dance and vocal chorus was continued during a quarter of an hour, to the dissonant thunder of the war drum; and as the umbrellas filed slowly across the court through the opposite wicket, the happy bridegroom approached the throne, and did homage to the sovereign who had thus rewarded his services by alliance. The presence of the priest is so far from being held indispensable, that a wedded pair forms a rare phenomenon in Abyssinia. No marriage rites whatever solemnised this union; and the shrew, in full procession, proceeded straightway to spend the honeymoon at the abode of her third husband, who, following at a respectful distance, exhibited in his features small anticipation of conjugal felicity.
Descending through the great gate, a train of dirty cook-boys led the van, bearing on their heads pots, pans, and culinary utensils. One hundred female slaves followed, carrying baskets of bread, vessels of hydromel, bedding, wearing apparel, and other baggage required on the journey. Next came the band of flutes in full play, and immediately behind, the amiable bride herself, most aptly styled “superior to all.” Two maids of honour, bearing decorated barillas of choice wine from the royal cellars, rode on either side of their mistress. Numerous mounted Amazons—musty-looking Ethiopic figures in blue and white smocks, and party-coloured bead helmets—kept the inquisitive crowd at a distance with their long white wands; whilst an escort of three hundred chosen spearmen, flanked by nobles, eunuchs, and pages on horseback, brought up the rear, amid the thumping of nugáreet from the hill top, and the shrill acclamations of the entire female population of the town, which rung from every eminence in honour of the nuptials of Princess Belete Shatchau.
“My Galla subjects revolted,” exclaimed the despot tauntingly, as soon as the wedding was over—“My Galla tributaries revolted: I have played them one trick, and I will shortly play them another.”
The customary congratulations after a victory were offered in the words, “God has aided your arms.”
“Yes,” replied the monarch; “the God of my fathers has assisted me—I have slain four thousand six hundred of mine enemies, and have captured thirty-seven thousand and forty-two head of cattle.”
When complimenting the king on the clemency extended towards the prisoners of war, who had on this occasion been released for the first time during his reign, I did not lose the opportunity of commenting upon the destruction of innocent and helpless children, as being a most inhuman practice, and one quite unworthy of the Christian warrior. The despot smiled, as if half ashamed; and looking down, replied, “I am aware that it is bad, but in all countries we must conform to the customs that prevail. The Galla destroy the Amhára without discrimination, and we do but retaliate. You must all accompany me on my next campaign in January. I shall build a fortified house at Karábarek, and you must there tarry with me. Whenever you are present I will release the captives.”
During the absence of the army at Garra Gorphoo, one of the Mohammadan inhabitants of Argóbba had been waylaid and wantonly murdered by the Adaïel, who are in constant feud with the frontier population of Efát. The relations and clansmen of the deceased surprised the village to which the assassins belonged, and, in revenge, slew sixteen persons. Wulásma Mohammad succeeded, after much difficulty, in apparently pacifying the lowland tribe, who had in their turn sworn upon the Korán to take bloody vengeance; but no sooner had he returned from the border, than thirteen Moslem females, proceeding from the town of Channoo to draw water in the wady, were barbarously butchered at the well.
This tragedy being followed by an application for troops to chastise the delinquents, now induced the remark, that “if the Adaïel could see one fourth of the Amhára host, they would cease to trouble the frontier.”
“No,” replied His Majesty, “it will not do. My grandfather tried his arms with the people below, but he was surprised, and lost four thousand men and six thousand oxen in the bed of a dry ravine. The water of the kwálla (i.e. Low valleys) is putrid, and the air hot and unwholesome. Noxious vapours arise during the night, and the people die from fever. We fear their sultry climate and their dense forests, and their mode of warfare. They leave open only one avenue; and when the Christians enter the thicket, breaking short their lances, they rush in and fight at close quarters. No one can stand against them. Our muskets avail nothing, by reason of the trees and bushes. Furthermore, the Adaïel are subtle in strong medicines. They poison the wells with drugs, and corrupt the water with magic spells and enchantments. It is their wont to mix together the flesh of a black dog, a cat, and a certain forest bird. This they strew craftily about the ground, and whoso eateth thereof, becomes instantly insane and dies.”
According to the etiquette of the court, I now placed at the foot of the throne the presents which custom enforces after a victory. “My son,” resumed the king, “I am your father. I am rich. You have already given me too much, and I desire not your property. I wish only for your love, and for that of your nation. I am fully aware of the objects of your residence in my kingdom. I have seen your character, and know that you will slay elephants, and buffalos, and wild beasts. You must not go away, but accompany me on many more expeditions. You have now seen much people. You must go with me to Guráguê, where you will behold other tribes, and a far more extensive country. I shall build a wall. My father subdued all the population of Shoa, and I fear no enemy to the south, in Guráguê, Enárea, or Zingero. None can stand before me. The Adaïel and the people of Geshe (a province on the northern frontier of Shoa) alone contend with me. In Geshe they have large shields, and fight hand to hand. The country of the Adel is difficult of access, and unfortunate for the Amhára. It is an old dependency of the empire of my ancestors; but the men are brave, and stand firm in battle. They will not run away.”
Volume Two—Chapter Twenty Eight.
Chronicle of the Invasion of Mohammad Graan.
In connection with the foregoing remarks respecting the inhabitants of the lowlands, it is now desirable to sketch, for the reader’s information, some of those early hostilities between the Mohammadans and Christians, which find a record in the meagre annals of Abyssinia. They led, in the sixteenth century, to an event so often alluded to in these pages,—the invasion of Graan, “the Left-handed,” whose irruptions proved the greatest calamity that ever befel the country.
The allegiance claimed from the Adaïel by the emperors of Ethiopia is known to have been evaded at a very remote period. Ages ago gold was returned for gold, apparel for apparel; and the intractable Moslems were studiously kept in good humour whensoever they thought proper to visit the Christian court. Their revenues arose chiefly from the supply of camels for the transport of merchandise to various parts of Africa, and from the importation of fossil salt, which then, as now, passed instead of silver currency, and for which they purchased slaves, together with the rich staples of the interior. Thus the interests of Adel and of Abyssinia have always been so intimately linked, that the declaration of war was certain to prove disastrous alike to the victor and to the vanquished, since it must have interfered equally with the commerce by which both were enriched. Nevertheless, upon all suitable opportunities, the fanatic lowlanders, urged by religious hate, plundered the Christian churches, and massacred or tortured the priests, until they at length drew upon themselves a war of extermination.
The Abyssinian chroniclers state that Amda Zion, who died at Tegulet about the middle of the fourteenth century, first made a retributive inroad, in consequence of his rebellious vassals having, amongst many other derogatory expressions, taunted him as “an eunuch, fit only to take care of women.” But the Emperor was never beaten. He overran and laid waste the plains from the mountains to the borders of the ocean, and swept off to the highlands a prodigious amount of cattle. Every species of enormity appears to have been practised in retaliation by the Amhára, who were commanded to “leave nothing alive that drew the breath of life.” This behest was obeyed with all the rage and cruelty that revenge and a difference of religion could inspire; and before the termination of the campaign, the dauntless young King of Wypoo had been slain, together with Sáleh, the King of Mára, who boasted descent in a direct line from the Apostle.
Constant commercial intercourse had long been maintained between Cairo and Abyssinia, both across the desert and by way of the Red Sea. Great caravans, composed formerly of Pagans, but now of Mohammadans, passed in without molestation, and dispersed Indian manufactures through the heart of Africa. Friars, priests, nuns, and pious laymen, in vast numbers, also set out annually on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, whither, with drums beating before the holy cross, they proceeded by the route of Suakem, making long halts for the performance of divine service. But with the power of the Mamelukes, all communication across the desert, whether for commercial or religious purposes, was closed to the Christians. After the conquest of Egypt and Arabia by Selim the First, caravans were invariably attacked, the old were butchered, and the young swept into slavery; for the Emperor of the Ottomans, fully imbued with the merciless bigotry of his creed, held it a sacred duty to convert by the sword the subjects of a monarch whose ancestor had been honoured with the correspondence of the great founder of the Saracen empire. Many Arabian merchants, flying about the same period from the violence and injustice of the Turkish tyrants, had sought an asylum in the opposite African states, whereupon the Ottomans took possession, from Aden, of the seaport of Zeyla, and not only laid the Indian trade under heavy contributions, by means of their galleys cruising in the narrow straits of Bab el Mandeb, but threatened the conquest both of Adel and Abyssinia.
Betwixt these countries there subsisted peace from the death of Amda Zion to the middle of the fifteenth century. Towards the close of the reign of Zára Yácoob, who founded Debra Berhán, the flame of discord was again fanned by a certain queen of Zeyla, who is said to have aspired to the hand of the Emperor; but the Christian arms were still in the ascendant. Baeda Mariam, the next occupant of the throne, passed his life in a constant struggle to assert supremacy over the low country; and, on his death-bed, he caused himself to be so turned that his face might be towards the sandy deserts of the Adaïel, to whose subjugation his whole energies had for ten years been devoted.
Mafoodi’s inroads, it has been seen, commenced during the reign of Alexander. They continued, with increasing horrors, throughout that of his successor Naod. Nebla Dengel being only eleven years of age when called to the throne, Helena, his mother, ruled during his minority. Albuquerque was at that period viceroy of India, and to him the queen-dowager sent to implore assistance for troubled Abyssinia. Arriving at Goa, the ambassador announced himself to be the bearer of “a fragment of wood belonging to the true Cross on which Christ died, which relic had been sent, as a token of friendship to her brother Emmanuel, by the Empress over Ethiopia;” and this overture was in due time followed by the arrival at Massowah of an embassy from the King of Portugal.
Father Alvarez has recorded the unfavourable reception experienced in Shoa at the hands of the young emperor, who could never be brought to recognise his mother’s proceedings, which had led to this influx of foreigners. At the age of sixteen, having adopted the title of Wánag Suggud, signifying “feared among the lions,” he had taken the field in person against Mafoodi, who, backed by the rebellious King of Adel, still continued his wasting inroads on the Christian frontier. At the opening of the campaign, this fanatic, who had resolved either to conquer or to die a martyr to his religion, threw the gauntlet of defiance to the Christian chivalry, and it was instantly accepted. The infidel was slain in single combat by the monk Gabriel, a soldier of tried valour, who had assumed the monastic cap during the preceding reign in consequence of having been deprived of the tip of his tongue for treasonable freedom of speech. Cutting off the head of this vanquished antagonist, he now threw it at the feet of his royal master, and exclaimed, “Behold, sire, the Goliath of the Infidels!” The green standard of the Prophet and of the faith was taken, twelve thousand of the Moslem were slain, and the youthful emperor, in defiance, struck his lance through the door of the King of Adel. The monk who had thus delivered Abyssinia from her worst scourge, was welcomed with the applause of the whole nation. Maidens pressed forward to strew flowers in his path, and matrons celebrating his achievements with songs, placed garlands on his head, and held out their babes to gaze at the warrior as he passed.
It was shortly after the departure of the Portuguese embassy that Graan, “the Left-handed”—then King of Adel—made his first appearance on the Ethiopian stage, where he was long the principal actor. In league with the Turkish Bashaw on the coast of Arabia, this mighty warrior sent his Abyssinian prisoners to Mecca, and in return was furnished with a large body of Janissaries, at the head of whom he burst into Efát and Fátigar, drove off the population, and laid waste the country with fire. In 1528 he took possession of Shoa, overran Amhára, burnt all the churches, and swept off immense booty. In his next campaign the invader wintered in Begemeder, and the following year hunted the emperor like a wild beast through Tigré to the borders of Sennaar, gave battle to the royal troops on the banks of the Nile, with his own hand slew the monk Gabriel, who had vanquished Mafoodi in single combat, cut the army to pieces, practised every species of atrocity, and set fire to half the churches in Abyssinia.
Famine and plague now raged, and carried off those whom the sword had spared. The princes of the blood were all destroyed; Axum was burnt, and the monarch himself, after being compelled to take refuge in the wilderness, was finally slain. With him died also the boasted splendour of the Abyssinian court, for he was the last monarch of Ethiopia who displayed the magnificence of a “king of kings.”
Markos, the aged Archbishop, had, on his deathbed, appointed as his successor John Bermudez, a Portuguese who had been detained in the country, and at the request of Claudius, who succeeded to the empire, he now proceeded to Europe to obtain assistance. Don Christopher de Gama, with five hundred soldiers, obtained possession of Massowah, slew the governor, and sent his head to Gondar, where, as an early pledge of future victory, it was received with raptures by the queen. The general was shortly confronted by Graan in person. Artillery and muskets were for the first time opposed in Abyssinia; and the Portuguese leader being wounded, took refuge in a cave. Deaf to persuasion, he refused to seek safety in flight; and a Turkish lady of extraordinary beauty, whom he had made prisoner, and who had affected conversion to Christianity, shortly betrayed him to the enemy. He was carried before Graan, who, with his left hand cut off his head, and sent it to Constantinople, his body being quartered, and sent in portions to Arabia.
But the Portuguese were far from being disheartened by this grievous misfortune, and the armies were shortly in a position again to try their strength. Before the engagement had well commenced, Peter Lyon, a marksman of low stature, but passing valiant withal, who had been valet to Don Christopher, having stolen unperceived along the dry channel of a ravine, shot Graan through the body. He fell from his horse some distance in advance of the troops, and the soldier, cutting off one of the infidel’s ears, put it into his pocket. This success was followed by the total rout of the Mohammadans; and an Abyssinian officer of rank finding the body of the redoubted chief, took possession of his mutilated head, which he laid at the feet of the Emperor in proof of his claim to the merit of the achievement. Having witnessed in silence the impudence of his rival, the valet produced the trophy from his pocket, with the observation that His Majesty doubtless knew Graan sufficiently well to be quite certain, “that he would suffer no one to cut off his ear that possessed not the power to take his head also.”
Delivered from his enemy, Claudius now sought to repair the ravages which had been committed in his country. A total eclipse of the sun shortly afterwards threw both army and court into consternation—every ignorant monk who practised divination declaring the phenomenon to portend another invasion from the lowlanders. But in spite of this prophecy an interchange of prisoners took place. Del Wumbarea, the widow of Graan, had thrown herself into the wilds of Atbára, and her son Ali Jeraad, who was made prisoner after his father fell, being now set at liberty, Prince Menas, only brother to the emperor, was released from his captivity in the sultry deserts of Adel, whither he had been carried during the reign of Nebla Dengel. I Noor, the Ameer of Hurrur, who was deeply enamoured of Del Wumbarea, had proved the means of her escape from the fatal field whereon her husband died. The heroine now pledged her hand in marriage to him who should lay the head of Claudius at her feet; and Noor instantly sent a message of defiance to the emperor, who was engaged in rebuilding the celebrated church of Debra-work, “the mountain of gold,” which had been burnt by the infidels. Claudius, who had almost by a miracle rescued Abyssinia from the Mohammadans, marched instantly to accept the challenge. Many prophecies were current amongst the soldiery that the campaign was to prove unfortunate, and the hot-headed monarch to lose his life; but he laughed at these monkish predictions, declaring an honourable death to be infinitely preferable to the longest and most prosperous reign.
The rival armies were on the point of engaging, in the year 1559, when the high priest of Debra Libanos rushed before the emperor to declare a vision, in which the angel Gabriel had warned him not to suffer the king of the church of Ethiopia to expose himself in a needless fight. Thus discouraged, the cowardly Abyssinians instantly fled, leaving Claudius supported only by a handful of Portuguese soldiers, who were soon slain around his person, and he immediately afterwards fell, covered with wounds. His head was cut off, and laid by Noor at the feet of Del Wumbarea, who, in observance of her pledge, became his wife, and with truly savage ferocity commanded the trophy to be suspended by the hair to the branches of a tree before her door, in order that her eyes might continually be gladdened by the sight. It hung in this position during three years, ere it was purchased by an Armenian merchant, who caused it to be interred in the holy sepulchre of Saint Claudius at Antioch; and the name of the hero who had been victorious in every action save that in which he died, has since been enrolled in the voluminous catalogue of Abyssinian saints, where it now occupies a conspicuous place, as the destroyer of Mohammad, surnamed “the Left-handed.”
To the present day the most preposterous legends are believed with reference to the personal prowess of this fierce invader, his gigantic stature, and the colossal size of his steed. He is said to have wielded a brand twenty feet in length; and although it is matter of notoriety that he fell in the manner above narrated, by the hand of a Portuguese soldier, he is represented to have received no fewer than four thousand musket bullets before yielding up the ghost. The supernatural achievements of Graan are handed down to posterity in an extant Amháric volume; and his inroads gave birth in the mind of the people of Shoa to a superstitious dread of the Adaïel, such as was long entertained of the Turks in Northern Europe, and which it has been seen extends even to the warlike monarch.
Volume Two—Chapter Twenty Nine.
Proceedings at Angollála.
Certain Abyssinian potentates of old are recorded by their biographers to have bestowed in religious charity all their worldly substance, saving the crown upon their heads. But such will never be said of Sáhela Selássie, whose endowments, although frequent, are invariably regulated by prudence. Avarice stigmatises his every gift, and even adulterates the incense of his sacrifice. The countless droves of sturdy beeves which now ranged over the royal meadows were daily inspected with evident signs of satisfaction; but whilst the sleekest were distributed over the various pasture-lands, the leanest kine were despatched to the several churches and monasteries, as offerings after the successful campaign.
At this season of rejoicing and festivity, the host of loathsome objects that habitually infest the outer court, or crawl in quest of alms around the precincts of the palace, had increased to a surprising extent, in order to share the royal bounty. Swarms of itinerant paupers, who bivouacked under the old Galla wall, sang psalms and hymns in the streets during the entire night; and long before dawn the clamour commenced around the tents of a throng of mendicants, resembling the inmates of a lazar-house, who, with insolent importunity, reiterated their adjurations for relief by Georgis, Miriam, Michael, and every other saint in the Abyssinian calendar. Many petty pilferings were of course committed by this ragged congregation; and a deputation of the inhabitants of Angollála soon presented a petition to the throne, praying for the dismissal of the vagrants, who had become an intolerable public nuisance.
On the festival of Tekla Haïmanót we received an invitation to witness the distribution of royal alms, which was to be followed by a beggars’ feast. The wonted inmates of the palisaded enclosure were no longer there, but their place was occupied by a shoal of even more wretched beings, just imported with a caravan from Guráguê. Upwards of six hundred slaves, of every age, from childhood to maturity, and most of them in a state of perfect nudity, who had been snatched by the hand of avarice from the fair land of their birth, were here huddled together under the eye of the rover for inspection by the officers of the crown, preparatory to being driven to market; and the forlorn and destitute appearance both of old and young, stamped them objects but too well fitted for participation in the charity of a Christian monarch.
Immediately on our arrival within the court-yard of the palace, we were conducted by the king to the royal bedchamber—a gloomy apartment, lighted chiefly by the blaze of an iron chafing-dish, and shared not only by a Moolo Fálada cat, with a large family of kittens, but by three favourite war-steeds, whose mangers were in close proximity to the well-screened couch. Cleanliness did not characterise the warm curtains; and although cotton cloth had been pasted round the mud walls for the better exclusion of the wind, an air of peculiar discomfort was present. A rickety alga in one corner, a few hassocks covered with black leather, an Ethiopic version of the Psalms of David, and a carpet consisting of withered rushes, were the only furniture; and the dismal aspect of the room was further heightened by the massive doors and treble palisades which protect the slumbers of the suspicious despot. The mystery of our introduction into the precincts of the harem, was presently explained by the appearance of one of the young princes of the blood royal, who had arrived in the course of the morning, and, with eyes veiled, was now led in by a withered eunuch, in order that he might receive medical assistance.
Saifa Selássie, “the sword of the Trinity,” is an extremely aristocratic and fine-looking youth, about twelve years of age, possessing the noble features of his sire, with the advantage of a very fair instead of a swarthy complexion. Beneath a red chintz vest of Arabian manufacture, he wore a striped cotton robe, which fell in graceful folds from the girdle, and from the crown of the head a tassel of minutely-braided locks streamed to the middle of his back. “This is the light of mine eyes, and dearer to me than life itself,” exclaimed the king, withdrawing the bandage, and caressing the boy with the utmost fondness—“Give him the medicine that removes ophthalmia, or he, too, will be blind like his father.”
I assured His Majesty that no alarm need be entertained; and that although the cause was to be regretted, the day which had brought us the honour of an interview with the young prince could not but be deemed one of the highest good fortune. Much affected by this intimation, he laid his hand upon my arm, and replied, “We do not yet know each other as we ought, but we shall daily become better and better acquainted.”
“Whence comes this máskal?” resumed the inquisitive monarch, raising a Catholic cross devoutly to his lips, as the royal scion was reconducted by the shrivelled attendant towards the apartments of the queen—“to what nation does it belong?”
“It is the emblem of those who, in their attempts to propagate the Romish religion in Ethiopia, caused rivers of blood to flow,” was the reply. “No matter,” exclaimed His Majesty, in rebuke to the Mohammadan dragoman who would fain have assisted in the restoration of the paper envelope— “How dost thou dare to profane the holy cross? These are Christians, and may touch it, but thou art an unbeliever.”
The votaries of Saint Giles had, meanwhile, been ushered through a private wicket, and in the adjacent enclosure offered a most revolting spectacle. The palsied, the leprous, the scrofulous, and those in the most inveterate stages of dropsy and elephantiasis, were mingled with mutilated wretches who had been bereft of hands, feet, eyes, and tongue, by the sanguinary tyrants of Northern Abyssinia, and who bore with them the severed portions, in order that their bodies might be perfect at the Day of Resurrection. The old, the halt, the deaf, the noseless, and the dumb, the living dead in every shape and form, were still streaming through the narrow door; limbless trunks were borne onwards upon the spectres of mules, asses, and horses, and the blind, in long Indian file, rolling their ghastly eyeballs, and touching each the shoulder of his sightless neighbour, groped their way towards the hum of voices, to add new horrors to the appalling picture.
An annual muster-roll being kept as a check, all who were ascertained to have been participators in the distribution of the preceding year were unceremoniously ejected by the myrmidons of the purveyor-general, who has ever the interests of the state revenues warmly at heart. The mendicants were next classed in squads according to their diseases, and the dwarf father confessor, by no means the least frightful object in the assembly, proceeded, in capacity of king’s almoner, to dispense the royal bounty. Sheep, clothes, and money, were distributed with a judicious hand, each donation made being carefully registered by the scribes in attendance; and half-baked bread, raw beef, and sour beer, in quantities sufficient to satisfy every monk and beggar in the realm, having been heaped outside the palace gate, all ate their fill, and dispersed. Next to the merciful disposition of Sáhela Selássie, his munificence to the indigent may be ranked among his most prominent virtues. Whilst the needy never retire empty-handed from his door, no criminal ever suffers under the barbarous mutilation, so many distressing monuments of which had this day shared his liberality. Blood flowing from the veins of a subject finds no pleasure in the eyes of the ruler of Shoa. Under his sway the use of the searing iron has become obsolete, and the sickening sentence is unknown which in the northern states condemns the culprit to the wrenching off of hands and feet, whereof the teguments have previously been severed with a razor at the wrist and ankle. But widely opposed are the views of humanity entertained in different climes; and the scene that awaited our return from the banquet, although in strict accordance with retributive justice, was in appalling contrast with the more merciful fiat of civilised jurisprudence.
A warrior had been convicted upon undeniable evidence of the murder of his comrade in arms, with whom he had lived for years on terms of the closest intimacy. During the recent campaign, he had gone with this companion into the wood, and taking advantage of the opportunity afforded by hostilities with the Galla, had felled the unsuspecting man to the earth with a blow of his sword. Fame, such as is only to be acquired by the slaughter of the foe, prompted the dastardly outrage; and the treacherous assassin who had embrued his hands in the blood of his dearest friend, now placed the green trophy of valour triumphantly on his guilty head. “Where is thy brother?” was the question that awaited his return to the camp; but, like Cain of old, he denied all knowledge of what had befallen the absentee; and it was not until the body had been discovered, that suspicion fell heavily upon himself.
Mourning relatives threw themselves in sackcloth at the imperial footstool, and cried aloud for the blood of the prisoner. Arraigned before the monarch, the investigation had been patiently conducted during the beggars feast, and the “Fétha Negést” having been duly consulted, the sentence proceeded from the royal lips—“Take him hence, and deal with him as you will.”
The last sun that was to shine upon the malefactor was sinking fast towards the western horizon, when, with hands bound behind his back, he was hurried from the presence for instant execution. Its rising rays had seen him seated at the door of the hut, whilst his young wife adorned his locks with the newly-plucked branch of asparagus, that was the record of his infamy, but the meridian beam had witnessed his arrest. The relatives of the murdered, and a band of the king’s headsmen, each armed with shield and broad-headed spear, now formed a close phalanx round him as he proceeded with the stoicism of the savage to meet his well-merited doom; and an infuriated mob followed, to heap taunts and ignominy upon his numbered moments.
Impatient of delay, the friends of the deceased were about to immolate their victim on the meadow close to the encampment of the Embassy; but adjured by the life of the monarch, they urged the culprit over the rocky mound adjoining the Galla wall, which was already crowded with a vast concourse of spectators, burning for the consummation of the last sentence of the law. Scarcely had the unresisting criminal passed the summit, than an eager hand stripped the garment from his shoulder, and twenty bright spears being poised at the moment, he turned his head to the one side, to receive a deep stab on the other. Whilst still reeling, a dozen blades were sheathed in his heart, and a hundred more transfixed the prostrate body. Swords flashed from the crooked scabbard—the quivering corse was mutilated in an instant, and on the next the exulting executioners took their way from the gore-stained ground, bearing the trophy aloft, as they howled with truly savage satisfaction the Christian chorus of death!
Mother, sisters, and wives, now flocked around the lifeless clay, rending the air with their piercing shrieks.—“Alas! the brave have fallen, the spirit of the bold has fled.”
“Waiye, waiye—woe unto us, we have lost the son of our declining years”—“our brother and our husband is gone for ever!” Bared breasts were beaten and scarified, and temples were torn with the nails until the evening closed, and it was dark when the mourners ceased their shrill lamentation. But the turbaned priest was not there; no absolution had been given, nor had the last sacrament been partaken; and the unhallowed remains of the murderer would have found a tomb in the maw of the hyena and the vulture, had not a charitable hand enclosed them under a cairn of stones by the highway side, where many a grass-grown mound marks the fate of the cowardly assassin, who had destroyed his brother in the wood, and whose memory is coupled with dishonour.
Volume Two—Chapter Thirty.
Triumphal Entry to the Capital.
“Reculer pour mieux sauter,” is a maxim strictly in accordance with His Majesty’s notions of strategy. Twenty days had elapsed since the return of the expedition, when the arrival before the palace of six thousand head of cattle proclaimed the success of a second sweeping foray directed against the Ekka and Finfinni Galla. A Mohammadan merchant residing at Roqué, the market town and great slave-mart of Yerrur, was suspected of having with his own hand slain the son of Ayto Besuehnech, grand-nephew to the king—this youth having pressed on far in advance of his comrades in pursuit of the retreating pagans. To avenge his untimely death, a detachment, consisting of five thousand horse, was despatched under the command of Aytos Berkie, Chilo, and Dogmo, the government of which latter chief had previously been extended in acknowledgment of his recent services. They made a forced march through Bulga, and although foiled in their principal object by the precipitate flight of the rover whose life they sought, the whole of his family and followers were massacred, his effects plundered, and his house burnt to the ground.
The survivors of the Ekka and Finfinni tribes, believing the fatal storm to be expended, had already returned with the residue of their flocks and herds, and were actively engaged in restoring their dilapidated habitations, when the Amhára hordes again burst over their fair valley, slew six hundred souls, and captured all the remaining cattle, thus completing the chastisement of these devoted clans, who, notwithstanding the generous restoration of their enslaved families, had failed to make submission—and redeeming the royal pledge “to play the rebels another trick.”
The king had not honoured Ankóber with his presence since the arrival in Shoa of the British Embassy, but His Majesty now announced his intention of entering the capital in triumph. Thinly attended, and unscreened by the state umbrellas, he issued at sunrise on horseback through the sirkosh ber, the only addition to his usual costume being a plume of nine feathers stripped from the Rása, or egret, which were worn in the hair in token of his recent prowess at Boora Roofa. Putting his horse into a gallop, he never drew bridle until stopped by the Beréza, many parties under governors of the adjacent districts joining the royal cortège from various quarters, and swelling the retinue to two thousand equestrians, who continued at a furious pace to clatter over the stony ground.
Mosábeit, a village standing on a peninsula formed by the junction of the Toro Mesk water with the Beréza, imparts its name to this, the most direct road from Angollála to Ankóber. The river forded, the king mounted his mule, and diverging to the right, passed through a valley studded with hamlets, the inhabitants of which, male and female, came forth with many prostrations to the earth, whilst the women raised their voices together in the usual ringing heléltee.
On all occasions of rejoicing and ceremony, whether on the successful return of the monarch or of the warrior, or on the sight of a passing procession, the ladies of Abyssinia, with their characteristic love of noise, thus burst forth into a thrilling clamour of welcome, moving the tongue with more than ordinary volubility against the palate, and producing a continuous succession of tremulous notes. One watchful dame on the outskirts perceives the approach of the cavalcade, and forthwith gives out her wild screech of warning. In a moment the mountain side is covered with every female within hearing; the Hil! lil! lil! progresses fast and furious as they bend nearly double to assist in upraising the yelling chorus; tears stream from their eyes in the violence of the exertion, and far and near the hills resound with the gathered volume of their shrill throats.
The king halted for a moment at a pile of stones by the way-side, covered with rags, feathers, and flowers, to which every devout Christian adds his tribute whilst saluting it with his lips. It points to the white-roofed church of Saint Michael the Archangel, peeping through a dark clump of junipers at some distance from the road, and many were the fervent kisses of adoration bestowed by the triumphant warriors. A little beyond, a large black cross on the summit of a tumulus directs attention to the residence of Ayto Berri, quarter-master-general of the Amhára forces. Here His Majesty again diverged, in order to lead the cavalcade through the most thickly populated tract; and after resting for half an hour in the Ungua-mesk, one of the many royal meadows, now black with the Galla herds, he turned suddenly off to the Motátit road, according to his invariable custom, when proceeding to the capital after a successful foray.
The Arsiamba, styled at its point of intersection with the route usually pursued, Ya Wurjoch Madéria, the “resting-place of merchants,” is a singular cataract rolling over columnar basalt, of which the ribbed cliffs on either side are thronged by bees. But by far the most interesting object is a certain white pillar, overgrown with nettles, standing at the foot of the hills which bound the Ungua-mesk. It is designated “Graan’s stone,” and is famous from an existing tradition that the Moslem invader tied his war-horse to it on the occasion of his leading the Adaïel to the destruction of Debra Berhán.
Abundantly cultivated, and rich in grazing land, the tract we had passed over is throughout so destitute of trees and even of bushes, that the inhabitants employ no other fuel than dried manure. Arrived at the summit of the Chaka mountain, where straggling cossos break the monotony of the landscape, many hundred females, assembled from the numerous villages in the vicinity, lining the surrounding heights, again kept up one continued cry. It was drowned at intervals by discharges of musketry which echoed among the broken glens as the despot descended; and, preceded by a war-dance, wherein all the warriors joined, he finally took up his quarters for the night in a house separated by a deep valley from the capital.
Early the ensuing morning we rode out to the Cháffa meadow at the foot of the palace, to meet and welcome His Majesty, who, after arraying himself within a marquee erected for his accommodation, shortly appeared through a gorge in a low range of hills, which was crowned on either side by matchlock-men of the imperial body-guard. These kept up an incessant fire as the royal cortège advanced over the grassy plain, preceded by a band of mounted warriors, who, as on the occasion of the triumphant entry to Angollála, careered in intersecting circles. The king bestrode a richly caparisoned mule, and wore a green scarf mantle of Delhi embroidery. A golden collar encircled his neck, and a massive silver akódama extended on either side a considerable distance beyond the temples. The ends of the beam were hung with a profusion of silver chains a yard in length, whilst a row of spangled pendants across the brow half obscured the eyes, and imparted a peculiarly savage aspect, which was enhanced by a large branch of wild asparagus floating above the curly locks, and by a white and crimson robe drawn across the lower portion of the face.
As the cavalcade advanced, the braves continued to caracole until reaching the extremity of the meadow, where the assembled priests and monks of Ankóber, as well as of the neighbouring churches and monasteries, were drawn up to receive their sovereign. The holy arks were each screened under the canopy of a large embroidered umbrella; and that of Saint Michael, the senior, which had accompanied the army into the field, was carried beneath a debáb of solid embossed silver, decorated with chain pendants and fretwork. Psalms having been chanted by the turbaned body, who danced vehemently to their own chorus, the Alaka of the cathedral advancing, laid his hands on the head of the victorious monarch, and gave his blessing, when the procession moved slowly forward towards the foot of the hill, singing the death knell of the pagan,—
“Moolohóy Mooló? Hai hai!
Wokáo? Selála dábito!”
The warriors, preceded by the royal band of kettle-drums and wind instruments, took the lead up the long steep and narrow path, which winds along the verge of a precipitous ascent to the palace, perched on the very pinnacle of the cone. A proclamation, through the herald, having commanded the presence of all the inhabitants of the capital and of the villages adjacent, every roof, bank, and cliff, was crowded with women and girls. As the king passed on, they kept up an unceasing clamour, and it increased to a deafening din as he approached the gate of the outer enclosure, where a dense mass of curled heads extended across the entire open area in front of the palisades.
The British escort, drawn up before the lower defences, presented arms as the monarch passed, and within the stockade stood the high priests of the five churches, robed and mitred. The clamour, the music, and the echo of musketry, continued during the tedious ascent of the steep and difficult path, which, broken into steps, winds betwixt lofty palisades, through nine gateways and lodges, to the inner enclosure. Here His Majesty took his seat in a raised alcove, the throne, and the usual trappings of royalty, being on this occasion new throughout, and more than wonted cleanliness pervading every quarter of the palace.
Once more the large drum in the middle of the court gave forth its deep notes. Three hundred concubines, seated in a circle around, again screamed and clapped their stained hands in deafening concert. A dancing girl, flanked by two wild braves, whirled in front of the throne, and in a series of eulogistic rhymes, composed by herself, chanted a rehearsal of the recent heroic deeds of the puissant monarch, “who, although invariably triumphant over his heathen foes, had never decorated his royal brow with a branch greener than that by which it was now surmounted.” Each time she turned towards the crowd, a shrill clamour of united voices rang forth the chorus to her verse. The skin-clad warriors leapt and howled;—akodámas, coronets, and silver swords, glistened in the morning sun; and as the chiefs, governors, and nobles, formed in a semicircle on either side of the latticed balcony, stamped and clapped their hands in savage triumph—the populace, crowding the carpeted yard, and lining every wall, capered, yelled, and shouted with the wildest enthusiasm. A general war-dance followed the cessation of the shrill notes of the songstress, and the pageant concluded with a royal salute, fired by the artillery detachment over the British flag, which, in honour of His Majesty’s arrival, floated far below in the centre of the capital of Shoa.
Volume Two—Chapter Thirty One.
The Palace at Ankóber.
The entire slope of the palace eminence is studded with thatched magazines and out-houses; and these, shame to the Christian monarch, form the scene of the daily labours of three thousand slaves. In one quarter are to be seen groups of busy females, engaged in the manufacture of beer and hydromel. Flat cakes of teff and wheat are preparing by the hundred under the next roof, and from the dark recesses of the building arises the plaintive ditty of those who grind the corn by the sweat of their brow. Here cauldrons of red pepper soup yield up their potent steam; and in the adjacent compartment, long twisted strips of old cotton rag are being dipped in bees’ wax. Throughout the female establishment the bloated and cross-grained eunuch presides; and his unsparing rod admonishes his giggling charges that they are not there to gaze at the passing stranger.
In the sunny verandah of the wardrobe, tailors and curriers are achieving all manner of curious amulets and devices—the offspring of a savage brain. Blacksmiths are banging away at the anvil under the eaves of the banqueting hall. Turbaned priests, seated in the porch, armed with a party-coloured cow’s tail, indolently drive away the flies from volumes which are elevated on a rack before their ancient eyes, and detail the miracles of the saints. Under one shed, notaries are diligently committing to parchment elaborate inventories of tribute received. Sacred books are being bound in a second. In a crowded corner painters are perpetrating on the illuminated page atrocious daubs of our first father carrying spear and buckler in the Garden of Eden; and in the long shadow thrown by the slaughterhouse, whence a stream of blood is ever flowing across the road, carpenters are destroying bad wood in a clumsy attempt to fashion a gun stock with a farrier’s rasp, for the reception of an old honeycombed barrel which promises to burst upon the very first discharge.
Governors and nobles, with shields and silver swords, are seated above. Clamourous paupers, itinerant monks, and applicants for justice, fill the lower courts. The open Aráda before the great-gate is choked with idlers, gossips, and immoveable beggars, who, from the rising up to the going down of the sun, maintain one incessant howl of importunity. Oxen and asses, goats and sheep, have established their head-quarters in every filthy avenue. Newly-picked bones and bullocks’ skulls strew the rugged descent; and on the last terrace, surrounded by stagnant mire, behold Ayto Wolda Hana himself, seated in magisterial dignity, arranging the affairs of the nation. Hundreds tremble at his uncompromising nod; and appellant and respondent, accuser and accused, alike bared to the girdle, bend in cringing submission, as in a cracked and querulous voice the despotic legislator delivers his arbitrary fiat.
During the absence of the Negoos on military expeditions, the most inquisitorial espionage is exercised over the actions of every foreigner, and the strictest police established, to insure the safety of the almost deserted capital. Every avenue is vigilantly guarded, and no stranger allowed to enter the town without permission of the viceroy. Children only are suffered to leave the houses after dark; and watchmen, patrolling in all directions, apprehend every adult who may be found abroad during the night.
But Ankóber was now thronged to overflowing. Brawls disturbed the streets, and, during the early hours of each evening, drunken parties were to be seen streaming home from the royal banquet, shouting the war chorus, and not unfrequently preceded by one of the court buffoons, engaged in the performance of the most absurd follies, antics, and grimaces. Day and night the invocations of a host of mendicants arose from every lane and alley, and the importunity to which we were exposed on the part of the wealthy had attained the point beyond which it was scarcely possible to advance. Each ruffian who had destroyed an infant considered that he possessed an undeniable right to be “decorated from head to foot, and completely ornamented.” Villains, streaming with rancid butter, entered the Residency, and desired that the “Gyptzis’s bead shop might be opened, as they had brought salt to purchase a necklace;” whilst the king’s three fiddlers, who had each slain a foe during the foray, appearing with the vaunting green saréti, attuned their voices and their squeaking instruments to the detail of their prowess, and demanded the merited reward. “The gun is the medicine for the cowardly Pagan who ascends a tree,” was the maxim of many who aspired to the possession of one of these weapons; and for hours together men stood before the door with cocks and hens and loaves of bread, to establish their claim to the possession of “pleasing things.”
With the design of aiding his fast-swelling collection of natural history. Dr Roth had offered rewards to all who chose to contribute, and the king’s pages were kept well supplied with ammunition for the destruction of birds; but the unconquerable love of sticking a feather in the hair almost invariably spoiled the specimen. A bat, firmly wedged between the prongs of a split cane, was one day brought by a boy, who extended the prize at arm’s length: “I’ve caught him at last,” he exclaimed with exultation—“It is the Devil, who had got into the monastery of Aferbeine; I’ve caught the rascal; min abát?” “what is his father?”
After this strong invective, which is indiscriminately applied also as occasion demands, to man, beast, and every inanimate thing, the youth was not a little surprised to perceive the naturalist quietly extricate the much-dreaded animal with his fingers. A party of females, who carried pitchers of water at their backs, had halted in the road, and looking over the hedge, were silent spectators of the proceeding. “Erág, erág,” they exclaimed with one accord, placing their hands before their months as they ran horror-stricken from the spot—“O wai Gypt,” “Alas, Egyptians! far be such things from us!”
On the festival of Michael the Archangel, whose church immediately adjoins the palace, the monarch received the holy sacrament in the middle of the night, and returned thanks for his victory, a chair having previously been obtained from the Residency to obviate the fatigue stated to have resulted from former orisons. The holy ark, which had brought success to his arms, was again placed under the silver canopy, and thrice carried in solemn procession around the sacred edifice, under a salute of musketry and ordnance. Large offerings were as usual made to it, alms distributed among the poor, a new cloth given to each of the king’s slaves, and a feast prepared for every inhabitant of Ankóber. Rejoicings, which had continued throughout the city since the triumphal entry, were this day renewed with increased energy, even girls and young children whooping war-songs in celebration of the safe return of the warriors from battle.
But the voice of lamentation succeeded to the strains of joy. An eclipse had suddenly inumbrated the moon, and as the black shadow was perceived stealing rapidly onwards, and casting a mysterious gloom over the face of nature, late so bright, the exulting Christians were seized with the direst consternation. The sound of the drum was hushed, and the wild chorus was heard no more. Believing the orb to be dead, and that her demise prognosticated war, pestilence, and famine, the entire town and suburbs became a scene of panic, tumult, and uproar, whilst women and men, priests and laity, collecting together in the streets and in the churches, cried aloud upon the “Saviour of the world to take pity on them—to screen them from the wrath of God—and to cover them with a veil of mercy, for the sake of Mary, the mother of our Lord.”
The pagan Galla, of whom there are many in Ankóber, lifting up their voices, joined in the general petition, and, from not comprehending the Amháric tongue, placed upon it the most absurd construction. During the whole period of the moon’s obscuration, the wailing continued without intermission; and when the planet, emerging, sailed again through the firmament in all her wonted brilliancy, a universal shout of joy burst from the lips of the savages, in the firm belief that the prayers and sobs of the multitude had prevailed, and awakened her from the sleep of death.
His Majesty had been previously apprised of the precise hour and minute at which the obscuration was to commence and terminate, and his incredulity in the first instance was followed by equally unfeigned surprise at the powers of divination displayed. “Eclipses are bad omens,” said the king, when their causes had been explained. “Was Subagádis not slain on the appearance of one, and did another not bring defeat to Ras Ali?” The chief smith was, nevertheless, instructed to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the use of logarithmic tables, and of “the instruments that read the heavens;” and the royal attention was temporarily diverted from the study of medicine to the contemplation of the celestial bodies.
In Shoa, the silver sword is the emblem of rank and authority, and it is girded on the loins of none but those who enjoy an exalted place in the sovereign’s favour. The forfeiture of government and the loss of the cumbrous badge go hand in hand, and many are the weary hours of attendance indispensable towards the restoration of either. On no foreigner who had yet visited the Christian land had this mark of distinction been conferred, but the despot now suddenly resolved that the fluted tulip scabbard should adorn his English guests. “You bring the stars upon earth, and foretell coming events,” said His Majesty, as he presented these tokens of favour and confidence—“you are my children; you possess strong medicine. You must wear these swords in assurance of my permanent love, that your name may be great in the eyes of all my people.”